City councillors have approved a Downtown Orillia Management Board (DOMB) request to spend up to $15,000 more than originally budgeted for a replacement work truck used for downtown maintenance.
In the 2022 budget process, council originally approved the DOMB request for $10,000 to be spent on a new truck. The vehicle the DOMB has sourced, however, is a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado, coming in at $18,000, plus taxes.
Although the vehicle will be paid for out of the DOMB’s own reserve fund, the board still needed the approval of council as the truck’s price tag exceeded the originally approved amount.
“What happened was that the DOMB was unaware that we were not able to use our own funds with the purchase of a new truck, and this was only brought to light after we had sourced a suitable work truck,” said DOMB chair Michael Fredson at a council committee meeting earlier this week.
“It was always the board’s intention to add to that total funding; it was just we didn’t have the allocation done correctly.”
In an accompanying report, the DOMB noted $10,000 would not be sufficient for a reliable vehicle.
“If the committee approves the (request), this will allow the completion of a purchase of sale of a suitable work truck with low kilometres. Ten thousand dollars would provide us with a 15- to 20-year-old truck, or a truck that is 12-plus years old that is being sold as is, excessive kilometres, branded or unfit,” the report stated.
"The DOMB connected with several dealerships who were not able to source a truck that was a two-door, full-cab work truck that had less than 200,000 kilometres in a price point of $10,000.”
Council members were generally supportive of the request for additional funding.
“All the things that it is used to do, with the hanging of the flowers and the banners and gathering garbage, I think it’s something that has really proven its worth and the DOMB uses (its truck) a lot, and I’m absolutely delighted to support this,” said Coun. Pat Hehn.
“I think that this is really a no-brainer — really simple that we need to approve this,” said Coun. Mason Ainsworth.
However, Ainsworth and other members of council were concerned with how the process unfolded.
“I want to make sure that, for future reference, these things get handled a bit more appropriately. I’m not sure where the disconnect was in the discussion,” he said.
Mayor Steve Clarke questioned why council’s liaison to the DOMB, Coun. Rob Kloostra, did not inform council about the roadblock to purchasing the truck earlier.
“You are the council liaison, so I’m just curious why council was not aware of the change, contrary to council resolution, and the only way we found out was when the DOMB sent the contract for signing, which we couldn’t sign because it was contrary to the resolution,” he said.
“I think we, as the DOMB, should have done our due diligence a little bit better so that when we did bring the budget forecast for that, we put a different number in there for the purchase price of the vehicle,” Kloostra responded.
“If you needed a little more information, I apologize that I didn’t bring that forward sooner, but when these things come to our board, these are the decisions we have to make.”
Decisions made at Monday’s council committee meeting will need to be ratified at the next council meeting.
